This present invention relates to floor finishing machines and more particularly to an improved floor finishing machine for use with a power rider trailer.
The process of finishing a new floor or refinishing an old floor is well known in the art. The steps necessary to finish or refinish a wooden floor generally include the steps of sanding the floor with successively finer grits of sandpaper or other abrasive material, then screening the floor with a mesh screen as a final abrasion to blend the sanded areas. A wooden floor can then optionally be stained, sealed and finally the surface is buffed or polished.
Powered floor sanders come in several varieties, the three most common being drum, belt and rotary sanders. A drum sander has a cylinder covered with removable sandpaper that is rotated against the floor by means of a motor. A belt sander type of floor sander has a belt of sandpaper held by two cylinders which move the belt against the wooden floor by a motor driving one or both cylinders. The cylinder or cylinders of the drum sander or belt sander rotate about the axis generally parallel to the floor.
Drum and belt sanders are designed for the heavier sanding required when finishing a newly installed floor. Drum and belt sanders must be used with care and generally only in the earlier stages of sanding a floor, when the rougher grits of sandpaper are used. These types of machines tend to gouge and scratch a floor and can't be used for the finer blending required to finish the floor.
After the sanding is completed the floor must be screened. Screening is a process of moving a fine mesh of abrasive screen across the floor to further blend wood together and make for an even surface. The screen is usually a plastic or fabric that is impregnated with an abrasive material.
The heavier sanding is not required of most floors that need to be refinished. Instead, existing floors are typically only treated to a lighter sanding in order to remove any existing layer of wax or dirt, then screened to lightly score the surface, roughing it up to make it take the next coat.
In the past a third type of sander, a rotary sander pushed by a human user, was used for the final stages of finishing a wooden floor. A rotary sander has one or more disks, each called a pad driver, driven by a motor. In a rotary sander sandpaper or screen mesh is affixed to the pad driver and rotated against the floor, about an axis generally perpendicular to the floor, by a motor. Rotary sanders are not designed to do the heavy abrasion work of the drum or belt sanders, instead they are used with the finer grits of sandpaper or mesh screen to smooth the surface in the final sanding and the screening stages. In all cases a layer of stain or sealant is applied to the prepared surface, then usually buffed and polished thereafter.
Most rotary floor sanders are designed to have the user propel the sander across a floor by pushing and pulling on the sander. Such pushing and pulling by a human user renders the desired degree of control to result in an evenly sanded floor surface. A design having the user push the rotary sander is adequate for smaller jobs but is difficult, tedious and inefficient for larger floors, such as those of gymnasiums.
Drum and belt sanders have previously been used in combination with a propelling vehicle. Such a vehicle is disclosed in Mattson, U.S. Pat. No. 5,033,564, later reissued as RE. 34,822. The disclosure of each of these patents is incorporated herein in its entirety by reference. The sander disclosed by this patent is not used in combination with a rotary sander and cannot be used to screen a floor. This propelling vehicle, hereafter referred to as a power rider trailer, is sold by the Floor Style Company of Hastings, Mich. under the trademark FLOOR MACK.RTM..